Major League Baseball has suspended six players for their parts in Thursday afternoon's bench-clearing brawl between the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals. Four Royals and two White Sox players received a total of 26 games of suspension, which -- barring appeals that are certain to come -- would all begin Sunday.

MLB.com announced the suspensions early Saturday afternoon.

Royals

  1. Pitcher Yordano Ventura, seven games.
  2. Pitcher Edinson Volquez, five games.
  3. Outfielder Lorenzo Cain, two games.
  4. Pitcher Kelvin Herrera, two games.

Herrera has already received a five-game suspension for throwing at the Oakland Athletics' Brett Lawrie earlier in the week.

White Sox

  1. Pitcher Chris Sale, five games.
  2. Pitcher Jeff Samardzija, five games. 

In addition, White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers has received an undisclosed fine.

The appeal process basically allows players to decide when they will actually serve their penalties. Often, players may appeal until they slump, get a little tired or banged up, or find their teams playing a weak part of the schedule. All six of these players will likely appeal.

Although the official games served are consistent between any pitchers and position players involed in any suspension, the practicality of how suspensions affect starting pitchers is far more lenient.

For example, Ventura will miss one start at most. He could also check the schedule and decide for himself which team he would perfer to skip. He could then drop a potnetial appeal and begin serving at his own designated time.

For Samardzija and Sale, they may not miss a game at all. Samardzija's next scheduled start is Monday, April 27. He could appeal until then and drop his appeal Tuesday. Then, instead of pitching again Saturday, he could simply move one day later to Sunday. Sale could do the exact same thing with his next scheduled start Tuesday and return Monday.

Clearly, the current suspension and appeals process favors the players -- most notably the starting pitchers.